Lana Turner: Hollywood’s Femme Fatale, and the Murder That Shook the Silver Screen

Devisadaria Duchine-Khauli

19 June 2025

Lana Turner, Hollywood’s Femme Fatale, and the Murder That Shook the Silver Screen

In the golden era of Hollywood, few actresses shimmered brighter, or lived more turbulently than Lana Turner. Known for her sultry screen presence and dramatic personal life, Turner’s name became forever tied to one of Tinseltown’s most infamous true crime tales: the 1958 killing of mobster Johnny Stompanato.

I, like many became familiar with Lana Turner's acting prowess due to her powerful performance in the 1959 remake of Imitation of Life.

Art Imitating Life: Lana Turner in Imitation of Life (1959)

In 1959, Lana Turner starred in what would become one of the defining films of her career, the remake of Imitation of Life. Directed by Douglas Sirk, the film was a lush, emotional melodrama that tackled themes of race, identity, ambition, and mother-daughter conflict, ironically mirroring elements of Turner’s own turbulent personal life.

Turner played Lora Meredith, a struggling white actress who forms an unlikely friendship with Annie Johnson, played by Juanita Moore, a Black woman with a light-skinned daughter, Sarah Jane, who passes for white. While Lora rises to fame and fortune, her own relationship with her daughter Sandra Dee becomes increasingly strained as Lora prioritizes her career over motherhood.

The film was a critical and commercial success and remains a cult classic today, praised for its emotional weight and social commentary. Many saw Turner’s performance as one of the most emotionally vulnerable of her career, drawing on her real-life experiences with fame, sacrifice, and complicated motherhood.

Turner’s rise to fame reads like a movie script itself. At sixteen years-old, she was discovered while sipping a soda at a drugstore. From there, she was quickly transformed into a glamour queen and box office siren. But behind the glossy covers and Technicolor smiles was a woman whose real life was a tangle of heartbreaks, affairs, and dark entanglements but none more damaging than her relationship with Johnny Stompanato.

Stompanato's mug shot

Turner & Stompanato 1957

Stompanato and Mickey Cohen

Johnny Stompanato was a feared associate of L.A. mob boss Mickey Cohen. The relationship between he and Turner was a storm of passion and violence, with reports of his controlling behavior, jealousy, and physical abuse. Friends and insiders whispered about his threats to ruin Turner’s career, and even her life, if she tried to leave him.

Stompanato had a reputation for chasing starlets. Sometime in 1957, he got hold of Lana Turner’s phone number and pursued her aggressively.

In September of that year, Turner was in London filming Another Time, Another Place alongside Sean Connery. Stompanato insisted on accompanying her but Turner asked him not to come, perhaps sensing he’d bring trouble. And she would be right. Stompanato flew to London unannounced. Fueled by jealousy and suspicion, he made his way to the set with a gun. According to several accounts, she was visibly shaken once she caught sight of him.

What happened afterwards could’ve been a scene from one of Turner’s noir films. Stompanato accused Turner of having an affair with Connery, before pulling the gun on the pair. Wrong move!

What Stompanato didn’t know was that Connery was a bodybuilder, a black belt in karate, and no stranger to physical confrontation. Connery quickly disarmed him by twisting his wrist; forcing the gun out of Stompanato's hand, and forcing him to the ground. Turner called the police, and Stompanato was promptly deported back to the United States. However, this was not the end of the incident and seven months later, Stompanato would be dead.

Cheryl Crane being escorted from juvenile hall in Los Angeles by policewoman Margaret Weissberg, on 5 April 1958.

Cheryl Crane & Lana Turner 1959

The Murder of Johnny Stompanato

Everything exploded on the night of 4 April 1958. In Turner’s Beverly Hills home, after a violent argument, Stompanato allegedly beat her, threaten to cut up her "pretty face," and kill her daughter and mother. Following the alleged threats, Stompanato was stabbed to death.

And who was the person who fatally plunged the knife into his abdomen? According to police, it was Turner’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, who said she was defending her mother from an attack.

Cheryl was taken into custody, and the media circus exploded. The official story was that this was a case of justifiable homicide committed by a child protecting her mother. However, the public, ever fascinated by the mix of celebrity and scandal began to speculate.

The actual crime scene

Many believed it was Lana, not Cheryl, who actually killed Stompanato in a fit of rage or fear, and that the studio system, desperate to protect one of its most bankable stars, engineered the cover-up. The alleged logic was that Cheryl, a minor, couldn’t be tried as an adult. If anyone was going to take the fall, better it be the daughter.

1959, Turner at the inquest.

At the inquest, Turner tearfully testified for an hour about the abuse she'd endured at the hands of Stompanato. Many members of the press believed and expressed in their coverage of the trial that she was acting during her testimony and that the performance rivaled her best films.

On 11 April 1958, the coroner’s inquest ruled the homicide justifiable, clearing Crane of any wrongdoing. She was released later that month and placed in the care of her grandmother. But doubts lingered and still do.

The Aftermath

Although Cheryl Crane was cleared of all wrongdoing, Stompanato’s first ex-wife, Sara Utush, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in June 1958 against Turner, Cheryl, and Cheryl’s father, Joseph Stephen Crane.

Stompanato met and married Utush in 1946. However, he abandoned her shortly after she gave birth to their son in 1947, relocating to Hollywood to pursue his own interests. Utush filed the lawsuit on behalf of herself and her son, seeking $750,000 in damages which is the equivalent of $6.08 million in 2025. The case was ultimately settled out of court in 1962 for $20,000, which is approximately $154,284 in 2025.

In her 1988 autobiography, Detour: A Hollywood Story, Cheryl Crane alleged that Johnny Stompanato had sexually abused her. She also made similar allegations against her mother’s third husband, actor Lex Barker, best known for playing Tarzan from 1949 to 1953. According to Crane, when Lana Turner discovered the alleged abuse, she confronted Barker while he was asleep by pressing a .22 caliber gun to his temple. She then forced him out of the family home and later filed for divorce.

Lex Barker as Tarzan. Lana Turner's third husband.

Following her release from jail, Cheryl asked to be returned to her mother's custody. Once she was in her mother's custody, she was due to attend boarding school. While heading to boarding school she decided to run away. She was caught soon afterwards.

After graduating from high school Cheryl worked for her father for a while in his restaurant, The Luau. That was followed up by a modeling stint. Cheryl would go on to become a realtor. At 82 years-old, Cheryl is still a realtor.

Cheryl admits that following the murder, she lived a hard life, due to her abuse of drugs and alcohol. Cheryl tried

Cheryl Crane modeling days

to take her own life more than once and for a time, she and her mother were estranged. For how long, no one could really say, but eventually the two would reconcile. In 1970, she met Joyce LeRoy, and the two would become lifelong partners, marrying in 2014. It is said that Lana Turner had always accepted her daughter's sexuality, during a time when many parents wouldn't have. She regarded Joyce as a daughter. In 1995, Lana Turner died from throat-cancer, leaving most of her fortune to her maid, but jewelry, property, and $50,000 to Crane and LeRoy.

Cheryl Crane on The Phil Donahue

It's No Fun Being a Celebrity's Child

27 January 1989

Here, Cheryl discuss her mother's abuse by Stompanato

Years later, Cheryl appeared on The Phil Donahue Show and joked that her tumultuous childhood and watching her mother’s destructive relationships with men played a part in her becoming a lesbian.

For those of us who devour history and celebrity biographies, the story of Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato is more than a murder mystery, it’s a window into the fragility of stardom and the blurred lines between performance and reality.

More than 65 years later, the truth of that night remains elusive. Did Cheryl act on instinct to protect her mother? Or did Lana Turner deliver a fatal blow, only to let her daughter shield her from scandal?

Like so many Hollywood legends, the truth may be lost in the shadows but the mystery still glows in the flicker of old film reels, courtroom transcripts, and whispered what-ifs.

Lana Turner's Most Famous Films include:

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) – a steamy noir that cemented her femme fatale legacy

Peyton Place (1957) – a scandal-laced drama that earned her an Oscar nomination

Ziegfeld Girl (1941) – a glamorous early role opposite Judy Garland and Hedy Lamarr

Imitation of Life (1959) – her most iconic late-career performance

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) – a horror drama showcasing her dramatic range

Madame X (1966) – a weepy courtroom melodrama that became a Turner cult favorite

These movies are all must sees. However, none of Turner’s movie roles came close to the drama in her real life.